February 8, 2023
By: Dwayne Page
The City of Smithville gets good marks in its latest financial audit report for the year ended June 30, 2022.
John Poole, Hendersonville CPA, who performed the annual audit for the city, addressed the mayor and aldermen Monday night.
Poole said the audit showed no major deficiencies. “In doing the state audit we are really trying to do three things. One is to make sure we provide the state the financial information that they require in their oversight but the ladies in the office at city hall do such a terrific job that we as auditors really didn’t have to spend a lot of time on that,” said Poole.
“Another thing we do that is most important to this board is to look to make sure we are getting the monies we are supposed to be getting, whether that’s from annual property taxes, monthly utility billing and monies from the county and the state such as gasoline taxes, sales taxes, etc. and then once we receive those monies at city hall we have to make sure our employees are following city policy and handling those monies appropriately and to see that those monies get to the designated banks. In our opinion as auditors, we didn’t see anything that gave us any concern. Of course, when you have as many property taxpayers and utility customers as the city does you are going to have some folks that may not pay on a timely basis, but the city does a really good job especially with property taxes tracking that and getting it over to the county. The city also does a good job with the utilities (water and sewer) managing that risk and doing cutoffs as needed so as for the city getting the monies it is supposed to get, we think the city is doing that very well,” Poole said.
“The third thing we look at is making sure the monies this board authorizes the department heads to spend is done for city business and we didn’t find anything to cause a concern as to how the monies are being spent. As auditors we are looking to make sure the city is following its purchasing procedures especially when there are grant or loan funds involved and again, we didn’t find anything that gave us a concern,” Poole continued.
According to Poole, the water and sewer fund showed a surplus for the year which meets the state’s requirement that the utility be financially self-supporting. “With utility funds it’s a state law that you must have at least a one-dollar surplus at least every other year. The change in net position is $157,000 so we had a surplus and you certainly met the state’s threshold. From a financial standpoint your utility system is in good shape,” said Poole.
As for the general fund, Poole said the net change in the fund balance position is $9,000 for the year. “In the general fund we spent $877,000 for the police department. We did borrow the money for the police department (construction) the previous year but even with us having spent almost $900,000 for the police department (debt service) in this fiscal year the city still showed a surplus. The City of Smithville has a very strong economy right now and in my opinion from a financial standpoint the city is doing very well with almost $6 million dollars in cash in the general fund that the city can use for future projects. It would be hard to argue that the City of Smithville is not doing very well,” added Poole.